IT IS SAFE TO REST: 7 Reasons Why You Don't Know How to Rest
Have you been told you are enough? How to reconnect to ourselves and get rest?
When was the last time you rested?
No, lounging on the couch while mindlessly munching on popcorn does not count.
As you are probably frowning and asking me, ‘Well, what is it then?!’, let me pose a question in response:
You have had a long day, you say “I am tired”, does it merely imply physical exhaustion?
Similarly, in essence, laying down horizontally does not always mean genuine rest.
Both your mind and your body have to participate in the whole ‘resting’ experience.
Dressing down your toxic productivity does not mean rest…
But let’s see why we often mistake busyness for productivity, and why is it so dang hard to slow down.
1. You don’t know how to slow down and it just ain’t fun.
Most of us are so used to being restless that we just don’t know what to do with ourselves when we stop.
Most of us are so accustomed to constant activity that we are unsure how to occupy ourselves when we finally pause.
We have long defined ‘productivity’ by our ability to “do”, so taking a step back (or merely pausing) feels… counterintuitive.
We spend one day on the couch watching The Good Place and we chastise ourselves for it for a week. (We also completely forget that while we did all this ‘resting’ on the couch, we replied to all our friends whom we had dismissed because of work. Yes, that was indeed a form of rest.)
To make things worse: if you are not in front of a screen, you might be overthinking the past, or the future, or tomorrow’s meeting because…
it feels safe to be busy.
2. You think you need to earn your rest.
Ha.
Yes, we are bombarded with messages that equate self-worth with our ability to constantly carry out tasks, achieve and produce. (Have you seen this ad that reads “You don’t have a secretary?” as the visuals suggest that you are spotless in your organization?)
Are we so disconnected from ourselves that we don’t know when we need rest and we end up treating it as a luxury? Why do you think burnout is so trendy?
Allow me to shout it from the rooftops:
You do not need to “earn” your rest, although it has been ingrained in you.
The recovery from short-term burnout takes a few months. MONTHS.
The recovery from long-term burnout - upwards of a year. YEAR.
(You have earned your rest…)
It is safe to rest.
Let that sink in.
3. You think you keyword SHOULD be doing something else.
What’s that? That nagging feeling that we should be doing something else?
From this day onwards, I want you to treat the notifications on your phones as reminders that you are not resting.
That brand-new email in your box is a reminder of how difficult it is to stop.
That chirp of a new Instagram post is a reminder of your perpetual busyness.
You have earned the badge of “illusion of perpetual availability” - the barrier between you and true rest.
The to-do list will never end, by the way, not in the modern world.
But it is exactly this dopamine hit of ticking items off our to-do list and receiving praise that reinforces our productivity addiction.
And this has become the norm: unconsciously, your nervous system dooms the rest-and-digest time as unsafe.
4. You yell “If I don’t do my job, nobody else is going to do it for me” more often than you’d like to admit. (you can yell it in your head).
First spoiler alert, there will always be tasks waiting for you.
Second spoiler alert, when you are overwhelmed with tasks, you don’t do them as well as you could have if you rest first.
You know how things fall into place when you need them to? This morning, I read:
Desire is one of the great engines that drives psychological growth and development. It is one of the clearest expressions of our vital work.
(From The Vital Spark by Lisa Marchiano)
Third spoiler alert: After being solely and constantly committed to work, you have lost that desire.
Last spoiler: Your time, effort and focus are yours (!) to manage.
5. You are a member of the cult of busyness.
The culture of busyness is so pervasive that we are all in it. According to it, not only our self-worth is determined by how many tasks we have put a tick next to, but also our success depends on it.
We are proud of our busyness.
We cling to it as if our lives depend on it, and in a way, it surely feels like they do.
With this badge of honour, in this relentless pursuit, we have come to view rest as laziness, relegating it to the bottom of our priorities.
Rest seems attainable when we have booked a holiday 6 months in advance, during which your manager can still reach you in emergencies.
6. Am I *sob* underperforming?
In this hypercompetitive world, of course, you will have no boundaries and respond to emails on weekends or when you are on holiday to stay ahead.
Stay ahead of the curve.
Of course, you have to outperform your peers.
Eyes on the prize, baby.
Of course, you have to work longer hours, take on more responsibilities and sacrifice your time (for the same salary, we aren’t greedy and we don’t know our self-worth here!).
Plus, this long-promised promotion is really sexy.
It is so sexy that you believe that slowing down or, God forbid, taking a break is going to threaten your advancement. You cannot be seen as an underperformer so you become an overperformer.
Until the brink of exhaustion. Of course.
7. You have simply not been taught how to rest.
School, homework tasks, sports practice, musical-instrument-of-choice classes, language lessons, extra courses to guarantee that we graduate with the best results, university degree, part-time job, first unpaid internship, first underpaid job…..
Only to get to the stage where we send out CVs for jobs that hire a graduate with 8 years of hands-on experience. I just graduated with a 5-year degree, where would I find 8 years of experience?
We are overachievers because our parents are, and our grandparents are, and we are in this vicious generational circle of “do more so you can be more”.
Realistically, did anyone tell you that you were enough, especially when you were a kid?
We are productivity addicts who have to go through the rehab of knowing ourselves and being more compassionate.
As you have read thus far, create a conscious story in your mind of the dynamics between you and rest.
Approach the pattern of constant busyness with curiosity (instead of beating yourself up for binging a season of Bridgerton).
Remember that these parts of you were taught to us and try to do us good.
It feels safe, so we do more of it. And then more.
But now, today onwards, you befriend this part of you and show it that there is another way.
You take your nervous system by the hand and lead it to the safety and joy of rest.
Believing that we are enough,
you are enough,
I am enough,
Katrin
I spend a lot of time thinking I’m resting, but even though I’m lying down, my mind is going a hundred miles an hour. It’s so hard to turn it off! Thank you for the reminder of how important that is.